CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: Interview With California Congressman Ted Lieu

Interview

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BLITZER: Jim Sciutto, thanks very much. Jeffrey Toobin, thanks very much.

And, Mark Mazzetti, thanks to you.

I wanted to give credit to your colleagues' bylines, Mark Mazzetti, Ronen Bergman, David Kirkpatrick, and Maggie Haberman, for your strong reporting in "The New York Times."

Appreciate it very much.

Let's get some more on the breaking news right now.

Democratic Congressman Ted Lieu is joining us. He's a member of the Judiciary and Foreign Affairs Committees.

Congressman, thanks so much for joining us.

REP. TED LIEU (D), CALIFORNIA: Thank you, Wolf.

BLITZER: What is your reaction to this new report from "The New York Times"?

LIEU: I have two initial reactions.

The first is that a senior Trump campaign official is now actively trying to mislead and trick voters, in this case Republican voters, and that may violate the law, but certainly it violates accepted norms of campaign behavior.

Second, what we have here is techniques, such as fake online identities, the manipulation of social media, that look very similar to what the Russians did. In "The New York Times" article, they say that Israeli plans were

never executed. But we know the Russian plans were. I think it is important to know who else knew about Rick Gates' attempt to solicit this kind of trickery and manipulation of social media.

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And I think it is very important for the special counsel to get to the bottom of this.

BLITZER: You are a former prosecutor. What does it tell you, having read "The New York Times" report, hearing all of the analysis we just went through, what does it tell you that Robert Mueller may be looking at right now?

LIEU: Well, it is possibly a violation of the law.

Look, no campaign should be trying to use foreign influence to affect an American election, whether that comes from a country like Russia or an ally like Israel. We have American elections that should be decided by Americans without foreign influence.

BLITZER: Does it look to you, based on what you know right now, like a crime may have been committed?

LIEU: Well, because Israeli plans were not executed, at most, it could be a solicitation or a conspiracy to commit a crime.

The fact that they hired outside counsel to look at this proposal does suggest to me that it probably is not a crime.

BLITZER: Let's move on and talk about the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein. Possibly, we thought a few, a couple of weeks ago he was on the verge of being fired.

Now the president touting what he describes as a very good relationship he has with Rosenstein, invited him to fly with him down to Orlando, Florida, today aboard Air Force One. What has changed?

LIEU: Well, thank you, Wolf. You are asking me to go into the mind of the president.

I actually have no idea what he's thinking. I do know that, as of right now, it appears that Rod Rosenstein's job is secure. That's a good thing. I have had the opportunity to question Mr. Rosenstein under oath on the Judiciary Committee. I believe he has done a good job preserving the independence of the special counsel investigation.

My hope is that he will stay on his job until at least the investigation concludes.

BLITZER: Let's turn to another important issue.

The president, he is doing a victory lap after the Senate voted to confirm his Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh. He is accusing Democrats of plotting to impeach Kavanaugh already. Do you believe Kavanaugh should be impeached?

LIEU: That question is premature, but I think at a minimum what should happen is, if the Democrats flip the House, for the House Judiciary Committee to interview the relevant witnesses that the FBI did not, to subpoena the relevant documents that the FBI did not, because really it was an investigation that was incomplete.

I have never seen, as a former prosecutor, a law enforcement or background investigation where the agency does not interview the main accuser or their accused. So I think we need to at least complete the investigation and see where the evidence takes us.

BLITZER: Congressman Ted Lieu, thanks so much for joining us.

LIEU: Thank you, Wolf.

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